Author: Luke Dashjr 2018-02-13 17:53:40
Published on: 2018-02-13T17:53:40+00:00
A proposal has been raised to amend the MIT license under which Bitcoin is licensed, which is one of the most permissive licenses widely in use. The proposal suggests that no part of Bitcoin software can be included in any other project that uses the name Bitcoin as part of its name and/or marketing material unless the software produced by that project is fully compatible with the Bitcoin (Core) blockchain. This would help mitigate confusion among users and prevent harm to the Bitcoin community caused by multiple hard forks. The recent flurry of hard forks has made it difficult for the general population to distinguish between Bitcoin (the protocol and software) and bitcoin (the currency), and the proposal aims to address this issue by restricting the use of the Bitcoin name in other projects. The MIT license is rightfully beneficial to many other projects, companies, and individuals, but several projects are unfairly taking advantage of this generous license to attack Bitcoin, confuse the public, and gain personal profit in a way that is severely harming the Bitcoin ecosystem. Although the enforceability of the proposed amendment is dubious, any infringing project would be exposed to some liability.
Updated on: 2023-06-13T00:41:35.660889+00:00